Chapter Three

Chapter Three

“I have heard your name bandied about, Mephisto,” Princess coolly responded. “What did you come here to do?” She didn’t beat around the bush. “If this is about your lover, he’s at my place. And I won’t be letting him go for the time being.”

“I am presuming that the time being can last a long time in your case.”

Mephisto silently drew closer, a winter sculpture passing through a summer night.

“Why are you here?”

Ryuuki’s question brought him to a halt. “I followed a man with two hairs from a doll embedded in his body. I had the feeling I would find someone to lead me deeper into understanding.”

“Deeper into understanding?” Princess asked, noting that Doctor Mephisto hadn’t given his one-time patient—Takako—even a passing glance.

“Namely—” Mephisto’s lips slowly curled into a smile. And as his mouth turned up, the two fangs naturally appeared.

Perhaps having already sensed it, Princess didn’t appear surprised. She looked at Ryuuki. “That makes you the servant of my servant. Can you tolerate being in such a position?”

“I have no choice but to try and measure the results,” Mephisto calmly answered. “Whether or not I am a man who can be addressed so and hold his tongue. Once the question is answered, let us repair to your kingdom.”

“But of course. In pursuit of greater knowledge. How interesting.”

Princess smiled. She made no effort to cover her naked breasts and sex. And yet what could be clearly seen impressed upon the mind both a sense of innate dignity and some species of hair-raising dread. Perhaps this was only what four thousand years of living could do.

An uninhibited sense of life spilled from her unclothed body. Call her the literal living dead, but could such a body be found anywhere else in this world?

“Ryuuki, you are this man’s lord,” said the peerless beauty. She glided up to Mephisto. The pale white woman took the pale white man by the hand. “A doctor who heals a woman with a mere touch. Well, then. Call me your patient.”

She guided Mephisto’s hand over the hills of her perfect bosom. The fingers sank into the soft flesh. The dented flesh suddenly sprang back as his fingers melted deeper into her breast. The Demon Princess smiled.

“This is your treatment,” Doctor Mephisto said, like an artist whispering to the night. “You have blood vessels, but only a steel blue darkness flows through them. You have a pulse, but a heart that beats but thrice a year. As for the old legends of the vampire—if I tore out your heart, how would you fare?”

“Don’t let me stop you,” Princess said. The words were directed to Ryuuki. Her eyes rested on Mephisto. “Try and see, my Pale Physician.”

Mephisto’s right hand sank in deeper. If only briefly, time stopped. In only a moment, he would withdraw that hand. In that moment, a bright red spark bloomed between them.

Mephisto’s hand spouted blood. The blood splashed across his cape and covered the rest of Princess’s unstained skin.

“That’s enough,” Ryuuki growled, his voice teeming with an untamed ferocity.

“I don’t mind. Proceed with the treatment,” she commanded, and again took hold of the doctor’s hand. “Let him try and release me from the fate of drinking blood.”

As the two hands moved down her body, toward the dark triangle between her legs, an unseen energy penetrated them.

“I cannot permit any interference with the treatment, even from one who drank my blood.”

“Princess may not be touched.” Ryuuki’s hand circled behind his back. “Stand down, Demon Physician.”

Among vampires, those who drank blood reigned over those whose blood was drunk. Following this rule, Mephisto could not act against Ryuuki’s wishes. And Mephisto did in fact take a step back. And was just as quickly pulled back.

“You are a shame to your sex, General Ryuuki. A pretty face—a flirtatious trollop making eyes at you—and your soul is theirs for the taking. Better you spend the rest of eternity up to your neck in the soft, unpleasant flesh.”

Mephisto buried his hands inside his cape. His white hands appeared again like an actor brushing aside the curtains on the stage. Ryuuki waited for the curtains to stir before launching his demon qi. Some old devotion to dead notions of chivalry and “playing fair” on the battlefield, and Mephisto no doubt saw it coming.

He produced from under his cape a small brown vial. Beads the same brown color glittered in the moonlight as they fell next to Ryuuki’s feet. The beads at the fore leapt—quite unnaturally, as if possessed of a will of their own—onto Ryuuki’s ankles.

A second later, Ryuuki wordlessly writhed in agony. A fierce electric shock coursed up his body from his ankles into his brain. His hair stood on end, his eyes rolled back in their sockets. Blue smoke trailed from his nose and ears. It didn’t end there. Other beads landed on his thighs and waist. Ryuuki spasmed each time.

“Crystal lattices were discovered in the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. A kind of biochip into which the health status of the inhabitants could be inputted. They had already discovered the integrated circuit, perhaps. Inside the lattice were beads of a different color. That’s what these are.”

It could have been a kind of security mechanism designed to protect information about the patient. And as soon as it detected an intrusion, it would deliver a deadly electric shock. In order to accomplish this, the inside of the crystal was coated with an insulating material and embedded with an instant-on power source the likes of which remained in development elsewhere.

“I just managed to complete the controls allowing targeted search and destroy, but it has finally come in handy. One bead, one attack. I would be interested in seeing how much a vampire’s body can withstand.”

Mephisto’s dispassionate voice made Ryuuki shudder as the crystal spheres spilled out one after the other. The felonious Demon Physician and the beautiful Princess—Ryuuki’s ostensible master—observed his suffering with a kind of glee that was truly macabre.

When the last crystal beads dropped onto the roadway, Ryuuki’s convulsions came to twenty. Smoke wafted from his body as he struggled to his feet.

“Splendid!” Mephisto honestly praised him, though it could hardly be taken as such. “An impressive revival. You should last a million more years. Who came up with this nonsense about driving a stake through the heart to kill you?” He spoke with a voice like a silver bell.

Ryuuki raised his hand. Could the qi of a vampire fell another vampire?

“That’s enough.” In response to Princess’s command, the general grew still. “I have only just met him, this man bitten by Ryuuki and yet able to defy him. Wonderful. You must come with me to my kingdom. And meet Setsura Aki there. Your lover and the man who will be my servant.”

“I am afraid not, Princess,” a melancholic aura cloaked Ryuuki’s words.

“Why is that?” Annoyance flickered across Princess’s face. Ryuuki’s objection was unpardonable.

“The man called Setsura Aki will never be Princess’s servant. He will never be a slave to any being. There are some things in this city that even blood and life cursed by four thousand years of experience cannot accomplish.”

“Perhaps.” She smiled. “If that is what is fated to be, then so be it. I am interested only in scorning and seducing him. He will never be my slave? It is all the same to me. In return, he will taste the fires of hell until he begs for his last breath.”

“Neither is that something you can accomplish the way you are now.”

“What are you saying?” The eyes of the Demon Princess cast off a crimson glow. The eyes that had given out in front of the compact armored personnel carrier.

“Princess, why do you insist on covering for that girl? In order to present her to Setsura? Never in two thousand years have you shown such sympathy for another person—not until he kindled it inside you. You cannot subjugate the person who brought about such a change within you.”

“You fool!”

Princess’s angry voice was right in front of his face. Even Doctor Mephisto hadn’t seen her move. With a sweep of her slender hand, she toppled Ryuuki over. Blood spurted from his throat.

“You surely know the pain that my hand can deliver. That will not heal for now. You will not sleep well. Suffer. Suffer. Suffer alone. No, suffer along with Shuuran’s dust.”

The stark-naked demoness beckoned to Takako. “Let’s be on our way. It is time to look into Setsura Aki’s hell.”

Mayor Kajiwara watched the fires of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Complex from a room in the ward government building. He didn’t know for certain who was at the bottom of it, but couldn’t help gloating a bit at the spectacle. They couldn’t dispatch the fire trucks at this time of night. The inferno would have to burn itself out.

Among the buildings that had existed since before he took office, these were held in unique regard. Still, though he dreamed of them falling every night, seeing the real thing reported on the mass media was a hell of a surprise.

There was no saying whether this made him a good or bad person, but Kajiwara communicated the sense of someone who took it all in stride, who didn’t worry his head over every little thing.

At least on this night—that wasn’t the case.

Kajiwara was vexed down to the soles of his shoes. The most direct cause was the nuking of the Toyama housing project. As was to be expected, outside forces—likely the Defense Agency—had sent in a team to exterminate the vampires. Kajiwara had anticipated such a move, and set up an ambush. But he never imagined they’d go nuclear on him. The whole project was a wasteland. The Department of Health was running around setting up radiation shields and blood transfusion stations.

Ally and enemy alike had been wiped out. The police had lost a hundred good men minimum.

He’d promptly filed a protest with the Ministry of Defense, and things were now in negotiations. The perpetrators feigned innocence, but at the end of the day, he’d make sure that generous expressions of sympathy would flow to the bereaved families. And after that, compensation to the ward and Toyama property owners.

But that would hardly be the end of it.

The mortification ate away at Kajiwara. There were citizens of this city he hadn’t been able to protect. And what good did money do the dead? And how to track down the relatives of the Toyama residents? Touch bases unofficially with representatives from each country and have them contacted on the sly? For starters, perhaps.

At any rate, he’d gotten off the phone with Beijing only a few hours ago. He was less sure what to make of the conflagration engulfing the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Complex.

The small sense of satisfaction Kajiwara was feeling was only natural. Though the Department of Tourism was sure to raise a stink over losing such a prominent sightseeing landmark.

He thought he could hear the engines of firefighting helicopters winding up, but it turned out to be a chime.

His secretary had already gone home. Kajiwara snugged up his tie and sat down behind the desk. He toggled the control panel and turned on the outside monitor. Chief Hayase of the General Administration Division was there with Kotani, his subordinate. Plus Yoshie Dodai from General Affairs.

“What’s up?”

“There’s something we wish to discuss with you in a secure setting,” the straight-shooting Hayase said. If he said it, then it very likely was so. The other two bowed their heads.

After a moment’s thought, Kajiwara gave the okay. “Come in.”

He opened the outer door and unlocked the inner door. The three entered quietly. Kajiwara furrowed his brows. They all held legal pads up to their faces. As if hiding their smiles.

“Let’s hear it.”

“It’s not that important,” said Yoshie Dodai. She’d only recently turned twenty, and was pretty in a neat and trim kind of way that Kajiwara appreciated, lent a lascivious touch by her inordinate voluptuousness. Today, the sum total of her physicality was particularly strong.

Yoshie began undoing the buttons of her blouse. Kajiwara wasn’t too taken aback. The way they hid their mouths had already clued him into what was going on. The only question now was which switch to push.

Yoshie cast aside her blouse and cupped her breasts. “Mr. Mayor, I’ve had a thing for you for a long time. You remind me of my late father, you see.”

She walked toward him, her hips swaying. She pranced like a cat and stretched out on the desk in front of him. Without making a sound. A neat trick. He had to wonder how long it’d taken her to master it.

But his confidence didn’t waver.

Yoshie jutted out her breasts. “You like me too,” she whispered, the unimaginable lewdness spilling from her innocent face. “I knew it from the start. Whenever we pass by each other you always look at these. And right through my skirt at my ass. And my legs. Tonight you may do with them as you please. I’ll make all your wishes come true. Nobody is in charge of anybody here. That is the most human way to live.”

“I wouldn’t disagree.” The perfume floating down from her hot breasts and mingling with the smell of her body was turning his brains to mush. “But I’m busy right now. Get down from there.”

He reached toward the control panel. Yoshie seized his wrist. Her hands were as cold as ice. And strong as steel.

“You—” A stab of pain bowed him backwards.

Three mouths smiled, revealing the fangs hidden by the legal pads.

“So it’s come to this?” said Kajiwara, stiff with surprise and resignation.

“That it has. Lots of people will become our friends,” said Hayase, licking his lips. This was the middle-aged man who always wore black arm covers and attended to business in a diligent manner, with nary a frown on his face.

Kotani said in an overly persuasive manner, “Before I became like this, I was always scared, Mr. Mayor.”

Kotani and Hayase had never gotten along—the youngster and the old-timer—but as vampires they seemed to share a mutual companionship.

“I never understood how liberating it could feel to lose that fear. Now I look at everything in the new light of freedom. And best of all, there are no restrictions, no taboos on whatever I desire. You won’t find any other people as honest about who we are.”

“You’re not people,” Kajiwara groaned. “You’re living things, if barely that.” The pain in his wrist helped to deaden the fear. “No, you guys are alive and you are dead. You’re mere monsters, aroused at night by their thirst for blood. It’s embarrassing for me to admit I hired you.”

“You won’t be for long.”

Yoshie pressed the hand she’d seized to her breast. Kajiwara gulped. An electric shock traveled from his palm down his arm and to his loins. There was no denying the desire. His manhood was standing at attention.

“You know it, don’t you? The joys my body offers. Blood is not a simple meal. It sets free every lust you ever longed for. I’ll prove it to you right now.”

Her lips came closer. Her fragrant breath tickled his nose and sent his mind reeling. The only reason he didn’t lose control of his senses completely was due to a different odor assaulting his nostrils.

Anybody who lived in this city had smelled it at least once. The abominable scent that never went away—the smell of the recent, not yet decaying—dead.

“To tell the truth,” the mayor said breezily. “I have my own ways of protecting myself from the likes of you.”

The three exchanged glances and grinned.

“A crucifix?”

“Garlic?”

“Holy water, like in the movies?”

“We’ve seen it all.”

Kajiwara thrust his left hand into his suit pocket. He’d bought five that morning. He had one left. Would it work at all? How effective would one be against many?

As soon as he felt Yoshie’s lips touch his neck, he ground it into her cheek. Harder than intended. His fingers sank into the flesh and the juice squirted out. A harsh way to treat a peach.

Yoshie’s mouth parted in a shout and grew into a scream. Kajiwara felt sick to his stomach. He contained the bile, but the acid taste filled his mouth.

“Get out, you night crawlers!”

The strangely invigorated mayor held the dripping peach above his head and rushed his once loyal subordinates. They recoiled and retreated. Their glowing eyes stained red, their mouths hurling curses even as they bared their fangs, he drove them from his office.

Kajiwara suddenly came to his senses. He should have them arrested. “Hey, wait there!” he called out, only afterwards realizing it was a pretty stupid thing to say.

He returned to his desk. After they’d gone two or three steps, the curse of the peach apparently lifted. The three whirled around and rushed for the exits. Doors opened and closed, and there were soft clicks as the locks engaged.

The cool, sterile environment of the office quickly returned and Kajiwara keenly understood the feeling of being alone. He sat there for a minute before toggling a switch on the control panel.

“Security.”

“Starting tomorrow, from dusk until dawn, every visitor gets screened within an inch of their lives. That includes me. No exceptions.”

“Got it.”

A direct command. A direct reply. As always. But a note of caution was there. Kajiwara steeled himself for what came next. “However, add one extra element to the personnel checks. A peach.”

“A what?” The security office was no doubt right now making sure that this call was really coming from the mayor.

“First thing in the morning—no, right now at the nearest convenience store—buy some peaches. A couple for a dollar or ten bucks apiece, it doesn’t matter. Grab as many as you can—well, no, leave some for the regular customers—look, just get five or so ready and present them to all visitors. No exceptions. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a joke, but I’m serious and this is a serious problem. I’ll go through the particulars later.”

“Roger.” The officer was going along with him for the time being, but tenseness was still there in his voice.

“After that—Hayase and Kotani from the General Administration Division and Yoshie Dodai from General Affairs—they freaked out and attacked me. I drove them off, but they’re probably still inside the building somewhere. Track them down. But—and I’m not kidding—only after you’ve bought the peaches. Once you find them, show ’em a peach, then arrest them.”

“Understood.”

He hung up and dialed the deputy chief of police. He couldn’t sit on this information. As long as what added to the danger and what repelled it existed in a close symbiosis, it was best to get the truth about both out and prepare for the worst.

It was about time to declare martial law.

“Peaches, eh?”

He gazed at the fruit inside his sticky fingers with admiration. Outside the window, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Complex crashed to the ground, casting a Milky Way of glowing embers across the night sky.